Lives; King of the Mountain

By Deborah Copaken Kogan

Published: August 20, 2000

'You're not going to just leave that tiny girl up there all alone, are you?'' the stranger asks me, his tone grave. He's pointing an accusatory finger up at my daughter, Sasha, who -- giggling and triumphant, her hair aglow with the last rays of the evening -- has just scaled the summit of a gigantic rock. ''She'll fall.''

I smile politely. I'm used to unsolicited parental advice by now. ''No, she won't,'' I say, careful to keep my eyes on Sasha and on her more cautious older brother, Jacob, who's leaning against the base of the rock, a safe 30-odd feet below his sister, eating an ice cream sandwich and most likely pondering the mechanics of subtraction. ''She loves this rock. Knows every crevice. And she's older than she looks.''

Sasha is 3. But at 2-foot-9 and 23 pounds, she is the size of an average 1-year-old. ''Mommy, Jacob, look at me!'' she yells. ''I'm up so, so high!'' She gives us a thumbs up. Her face breaks into a smile. That smile is why we come to this rock.

''Good for you,'' Jacob shouts. ''We're so proud of you!'' He's 4 and almost twice her size.

The worried onlooker, whose young boy (I know better than to judge age by size, but let's just say the kid's not yet 5) has been climbing up and down the rock undeterred, mumbles something under his breath about not wanting to stand by and witness a disaster. Then, with dramatic purpose, he begins to climb up the side of the rock to rescue my daughter.

''Excuse me,'' I say, my voice now brusque. ''I said she's fine.'' I'm sensitive about these things. I'm 5-foot-2 on a good day, and I've spent the better part of my life climbing my own mountains just to prove I could.

But my anger, I'm starting to understand, has deeper roots.

My daughter is hardly a pushover. She splutters vengeful Bronx cheers at all who insult her stature. She calls herself the King, she likes to wear sneakers because she says they make her look tough, she dreams of owning a motorcycle and her favorite activity is sticking her hand in the mouths of large dogs. But in the past year, I've seen my tiny king punched, kicked, shoved, hit and slammed over the head with various blunt objects at the hands of her fellow toddlers more times than I can bear to recall. It's aggravating enough to have to defend my much-smaller-than-average daughter against the adults who, upon learning Sasha's age, think nothing of saying, ''Oh, my God, she's so tiny!'' within her sensitive earshot. It's positively terrifying, however, to realize that because of her size my daughter might require more protection in more circumstances than any mother could ever provide. To accept the fact that there is no defense against human nature.

During my last year of college and for a little while thereafter, I fell victim to a number of random assaults and muggings. A few were quite scary: a couple with guns, another with a knockout blow to the head, others with unwanted tongues shoved deep in the back of my throat. Until I had Sasha, I always just chalked up these attacks to a mixture of my bad luck, navete and gender. But now, watching my daughter get picked on just because she's the runt of the group, observing the same old ''Lord of the Flies'' scenes blithely re-enacted in the eternal petri dish of childhood, it has occurred to me that my own small stature might have played a far bigger role in my assailants' choice of prey -- and the sheer number of attacks -- than I'd ever thought. I always knew being short was a slight handicap, an annoyance to be overcome. But dangerous? How's a girl to scale that mountain?

Sasha, to her credit, has learned to fight back. She has perfected the icy stare, the defensive stance and the bloodcurdling screams that usually send her foes running for their mommies. But these are preschoolers brandishing sticks in a playground. I shudder at the thought of my daughter, 15 years hence, walking all alone on a darkened street.

The man, now halfway up the rock, hears the shift in my tone, understands that I've finished with social pleasantries and stops his attempt to rescue my daughter. Climbing down, he stares at me, incredulous. ''Well, if she were my little girl. . . . ''

I cut him off. ''She's my little girl,'' I say. ''But, really, thanks for your input.'' You see, sir, beyond keeping her locked inside, which I would never do, or enrolling her in tae kwon do classes, which I will probably do come September, there isn't much else I can do to protect my daughter from danger, particularly the dangers that her size entails. Yes, she might lose her footing; she might even fall. But I'd much rather that she learn how to right herself than keep her from climbing to the top of her beloved rock, up there so, so high, the only place in her world where she's the biggest thing on the horizon.

Deborah Copaken Kogan is the author of ''Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War,'' a memoir that will be published by Villard Books in January.